She Dreams in Scarlet
by TheLostMaximoff
Summary: A little Halloween treat set before 'Hex Factor' and after 'Toad, Witch, and Wardrobe'. Wanda discovers that what was at one time her most fervant desire has now become her worst nightmare. Warning: graphic violence.


**She Dreams in Scarlet**

By TheLostMaximoff

Disclaimer: Don't own.  With Halloween fast approaching someone said I should write something special for it.  I decided that this would be good enough.

WARNING: This story is not for the weak of heart and involves particularly gruesome imagery.  That being said, Happy Halloween.

            Her arm was sore from where they had stuck her.  Constricted in the confines of a straightjacket, Wanda lay on her bed in her cell at the asylum.  They had strapped her down tighter tonight, had given her a heavier dose of sedatives.  Special treatment for a very special occasion.  It was, after all, Halloween, the day when monsters and witches walked among the land of the living.  It was a night when demons could be let out of their cages and roam free.  It was the one night of the year when the desire for her to escape became a maddening frenzy that caused her to spiral into an uncontrollable psychotic rage.  She had to get out, she was a monster and on Halloween monsters ruled the world.

            She giggled to herself as her vision began to grow blurry.  They could cage her, yes, but what about the demons in her head?  Just because she couldn't be free didn't mean they had to miss out on the Halloween fun too.  Even monsters deserved their freedom.

            "Go play," she whispered as the tranquilizers weighed her eyelids down and forced them shut, "Have fun."  She slid into a dream, a fantasy so morbid and vile it could only live inside her hellish psyche.  It was a tale worthy of Poe himself, a macabre daydream that she found a source of personal comfort from.  She would find them one day, perhaps on Halloween.  She would show them the monster they had created.

            I don't know where I am.  I don't think I'm anywhere.  All I see around me is three hundred sixty degrees of bright red scarlet.  That and the two people in the world I used to love.  There's nothing else, just me and my family.  No straightjackets, no sedatives, no distractions.  They know it too; I can see it in their identical eyes.  They know I'm about to kill them both.  Father disappears.  Just as quick as he's there he's not anymore.  Fine then, I'll have an appetizer first.  Killing my brother should be a good warm-up exercise.

            Pietro turns to run but he doesn't budge an inch.  His feet are already glued to the ground, his precious legs that have gotten him out of so much trouble paralyzed by my hex.  He loves to run so much, to feel so carefree.  I smile as I approach him slowly to savor what comes next.  I will take what he loves just like he helped take everything from me.  I will take away his freedom.

            "How's it feel?" I ask him maliciously, "Bet you can't stand it, can you?  You can feel it, the numbness in those hyperactive little legs.  You want to run so bad but all you can do is stand still.  Enough to drive you insane, huh?"

            "Wanda, please," he begs.  He doesn't get far.  I won't listen; not now, not ever.  The only things I want to hear from him are screams of pain and agony.  I want him to know what it's like to be tortured.

            "Let's have some fun," I snarl as I knock his legs out from under him and freeze him to the ground, "You wanna play a game?  You always did love games."

            "Wanda, I never meant for him to leave you," he explains.  He never meant to?  Neither did I but that's inconsequential now.

            "Well you damn sure didn't stop it," I tell him, "You let our father take everything I loved from me, dear brother.  So now I'm going to take everything you love from you."  I start casting another hex.  An unseen force begins to push Pietro's legs away from each other causing them to spread apart.  Farther and farther they go and the farther away from each other they get the more he cries out in pain.

            "Wanda, don't do this," he pleads.  I think that's what he's saying.  It's funny, his mouth's moving but I can't hear him.  I stare into his eyes.  Where's the malicious little glint now?  Where's that mischievous twinkle?  You're not winning this game, big brother.  All I see is a look of absolute pain and terror.  He knows I'll do it, knows I'll end his worthless life with no more thought than I would swat a fly.

            Everything has seemed to move in slow motion.  I can hear him screaming now.  It's music to my ears, a symphony on par with Beethoven or Mozart.  Until now I've only imagined what it would sound like.  I've used it like a lullaby to lull me to sleep each night.  There's another sound now too, the sound of the bones in his legs cracking.  It reminds me of a silly little commercial I used to see during Saturday morning cartoons.  How did the ad go again?  Oh yes, I remember.  Snap.  Crackle.  Pop.

            "Make a wish, dear brother," I hiss coldly as my hex snaps both his legs off like a wishbone from a Thanksgiving turkey.  He gives a final agonizing scream.  Any other person would've already blacked out from the pain but I won't give him that kind of satisfaction, that kind of relief.  He can't black out, not until I say so.  I want him to feel every second of the mind-numbing, soul-wrenching pain.  I want him to feel it because to him every second is like an eternity.  I've given him a lifetime's worth of pain just like he's given me by abandoning me.

            "Farewell, Pietro," I whisper softly into his ear as I kiss him on the cheek.  He ceases to hear, ceases to live.  I gave him exactly what he's dreamt of.  He lived fast, died young, and left a beautiful looking corpse.  Just like he always wanted.

            "Where are you, father?" I demand, "Aren't you proud of your little girl?"  There's no answer.  I see him a small distance away.  I can almost smell his blood on my hands.  I wonder what it tastes like.

            "Nothing to say," I ask, "or are you shocked that I've just killed my own brother?"  Again no response.

            "You shouldn't be," I tell him, "You should've known I'd turn out like this.  That's why you put me in here, isn't it?  You put me in here to turn me into a monster just like you.  You wanted me to be created in your image.  Surprise, daddy, I'm a better monster than you."

            He waves a hand.  A girder shoots towards me from seemingly out of nowhere.  I can't say I'm surprised.  Father always uses his powers for everything.  I envy him sometimes, envy his control.  He's relied on his powers so much, it's almost fitting they betray him in the end.

            "Catch," I snarl as I hex the girder.  It changes course in midair and hurls back at him with twice as much speed and power.  I smile coldly as I watch it rip through his flesh.  The sickening sound echoes as the girder passes right through him.  He falls clutching his chest.  All restraint is gone now.  I run towards him, determined to watch him die.

            "No cheating," I tell him.  The girder didn't impale him.  He must've curved it a little before it hit him.  It took a good chunk out of him though.

            "Look at me," I snarl as my hands close around his throat.  He stares at me with his cold, unfeeling eyes.  I can't tell whether or not he's dead.  His eyes hold no emotion.

            "We'll just have to make sure then," I state as my fingers dig into his neck.  I use my powers again to make my fingers go all the way through his throat.  I don't hear screams like I did with Pietro.  Instead I hear weeping, the wailings of the entire race of mutants as they mourn the crucifixion of their so-called savior by his own Judas of an offspring.

            "Let them weep," I retort bitterly, "The little sheep will have to find a better shepard, one who's not a wolf in disguise.  Good night, daddy dearest."  I give a final, sickening jerk upwards and rip his head completely off.  I kick the severed head of my father across the blood-red landscape and let out an inhuman howl of triumph.  It bounces off the ground like a football and comes to a stop.  I stare at my hands.  My father's blood mingles with that of Pietro's and forms deep red stains on my fingers.  I stare down at the body of this antichrist who promised the salvation of an entire race while damning his own daughter to a fate like hell itself.

            "All alone," I whisper.  Blood on my hands, his blood and Pietro's.  I look around at the carnage I have created in my mad desire for revenge.  Suddenly a sickening churning in my stomach causes me to almost vomit.  This is wrong, all wrong.  What have I done?  My eyes are bleary now but I continue to take it all in, the complete mess I've made.  I killed them.  No, I couldn't have, could I?

            I stare at my hands again.  Blood, so much blood.  Everything swirls into a thick, red haze.  Red everywhere, blood everywhere.  Our blood, our family's blood is all over me.  I'm drenched in it, soaked and covered in it.  Worst of all, I'm all alone.

            Wanda screamed as she woke up.  She felt cold sweat trickle down her body.  She shivered as the images from her nightmare replayed themselves over and over again.  She stared around her room in the Brotherhood house.  Her eyes involuntarily closed as the light from the opening door blinded her.

            "You okay?" asked Pietro.  She stared at him and choked out a sob.  The image from her nightmare, the gory scene of his death, flickered behind her eyes.

            "Wanda, it's okay," said Pietro soothingly, "You just had a bad dream."  A bad dream?  This was the mother of all bad dreams.  How could she even conceive something like what she had just dreamt?  How could she visualize the violent deaths of her family members by her own hands?  Was she insane?

            "I told you not to let her watch all those slasher movies," said Pietro to someone standing in the doorway, "I don't care if it's Halloween tradition or not."

            "It ain't my fault, yo," replied Toad as he checked to make sure Wanda was okay, "She suggested it anyways."

            "It's okay," managed Wanda as she tried to settle her breathing back to at least a semi-normal pattern, "It was just a nightmare."  She kept mentally telling herself that in an effort to calm herself down.  It was just a nightmare brought on by too many scary movies or too much Halloween candy.  She could never hurt her Father or Pietro much less murder them.  She loved them both dearly.

            "I'll be fine," she assured Pietro as he got up to leave.  He gave her one last look before closing the door and leaving her in darkness once again.  She shuddered and curled herself into a little ball.  It had been just a dream, nothing more.  She still couldn't shake it off, couldn't get the blood off her hands.  She whimpered softly as she rocked back and forth.  She often had nightmares but rarely this concrete or clear.  She never had dreams about murdering her family especially in such graphic detail.

            She curled up under her covers and closed her eyes.  She couldn't tell Pietro what she had dreamed, couldn't bring herself to describe it.  She felt herself start to cry.  There was something else she couldn't tell him.  She couldn't tell him that as abhorrent and ghastly as her dream had been there was a small part of her that told her it was the most wonderful dream she'd ever had.

"I find it kind of funny, I find it kind of sad that these dreams in which I'm dying are the best I've ever had.  I find it hard to tell you, I find it hard to take when people run in circles it's a very, very mad world.  It's a mad world."- Gary Jules, Mad World


End file.
